Me & BCall got on a trade & I had dressed all my 38-162 Lachmillers & he wanted fresh off the press !!

This mold is a work of art & I decided not to have it vented as it mite be a millionares dream 1 day so I cast BCalls & ya just can`t get in a hurry when the mold gets to temp , it blows out the drive bands is the best way to explain it !

I tilt it ,I pour slow-fast & still ya gotta let it cool a bit !!

Now I have no problem waitin but the problem is I can`t get a handle counting or tappin my foot or other wise gettin a consistent time for coolin & most of the time let it cool too much & get wrinkly boolits !!

I`ve run temp up & down & the only way to get a well filled boolit is to let the mold cool then pour a couple of cycles at 780-810f with the vave adjustment wide open & pressure cast em !!!

So I came up with some auto electric induction shielding tape , it`s .002 thick & has a stiky side.

When I put the strips on I can see just a tad of lite thru the mold halves , is this gonna work ??

I`ll cast some tomorrow fosho !!! but just a few to see how they run thru the sizer !!

I think you'll be OK. A number of guys have been using aluminum tape for this purpose. I suppose, with conventional tape, the adhesive just carbonizes and the tape is stuck in place by that.

The only way I know to positively control the temperature of a mold is with a thermometer. I drill and tap a hole for a thermocouple, but that's for aluminum molds with a poor emissivity. I think for a dark colored mold you should do pretty well with an infrared thermometer. Just pour at the same temperature every time until you find the one that works best for that mold, then keep using it.

Putting pieces of tape in a mold is called "beagleing", named after a poster over on cast boolits forum. It's normally done to increase boolit diameter. It also makes the boolits oval shaped.

I'll NEVER do that, I want my boolits round, thank you! If I need the boolit larger, I'll lement the mold, spinning a boolit with abrasive on it in the cavities. That'll remove some of the metal from the mold, if done carefully, the mold remains round.

As for the vent lines, you'd have to talk to a machinist to see if he could run that mold in a mill with IIRC a fly cutter across the faces of the mold.

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The more people I meet, the more I love my dog

They're going to get their butts kicked over there this election. How come people can't spell and use words correctly?

I contacted Erik at HollowPointMold service & he could vent it but would really hate to start permanently altering true vintage mold ,so I opted not to alter it !!

Mr. beagle is a smart man , he`s a practical solution genius !!!

I beagled to get some venting not enlarge the dia. The tape is only .002 thick & will only add .001 to each side uniformly so the bullet will be "balanced"

I could`nt stand it any longer I heated up the pot to 800f & started ,first 2 were wrinkly but good the rest of the way & I cast 1/4 " from the spout , then started dialin down the heat , stopped at 725f with good bullets all the way thru !!!! with no oxidizing of drive bamds !!!

When the bullets cooled I mic`ed em .359 across the seam & 360 opposite the seam , sized & lubed 25 & will size the others at 48hrs.

I had no issues sizing em to .3585 no issues with lube grooves closing or smearing of drive bands just a good sizing witness mark !!!

The weight of the bullet increased 2.2 grs. , but fit worries me more than weight to a point of course.

I was very happy with the venting also , now I can get a rythum going !!!

As for Beagling, do whatever makes you feel good. Some say the sizer in a Lyman type die only just puts lube in the grooves, they don't make much difference to how the boolit shoots. The barrel (and throats in a revolver) have most to do with whether a boolit shoots good.

Also, since I've never tried Beagling, maybe I best keep my trap shut!?? Sounds like something I should try when I retire come the first of May?. I will FINALLY have time to get serious about some projects.

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The more people I meet, the more I love my dog

They're going to get their butts kicked over there this election. How come people can't spell and use words correctly?

NO NO snuffy , maybe we mis understand each other !! & I know I type before thinkin sometimes !!

The more exposure to different options wether here or over there the better !!

& the more opinions or different views the better wether we all agree or can make sense of it all is up to the individual & there needs & means .

What got me to tryin to vent this mold is even if I smoke the cavitys the "spillover"carbon from my bic liter will seal any venting & cause the lead to spew out of the sprue hole even if I swirl the pour & there`s cross venting on the top of the mold !!!

I agree with Snuffy that Beagling for diameter is not good for best precision. But here you are with a mold that needs venting and you don't want to alter it, so you'll be running slightly oval bullets through your sizer and hoping they tend to center well enough for acceptable accuracy. If you want maximum accuracy at original intended diameter, though, you'll need to alter the mold.

As Snuffy suggested, a fly cutter run slow enough and fed fast enough so the cuts don't overlap any would put venting in, but it would have to be done carefully. I think an easier method to control for deflection is to get a jeweler's slitting saw arbor and a very thin (0.006"-0.010") thick blade mounted and put it on a mill and cut a few horizontal slots in the face of one of the mold blocks. Deburr and away you go. I'd try about 0.005" deep to start.

All things considered, and I know it was mentioned that permanently altering the mold wasn't desired, but a straight-edge and an X-acto blade would/should take care of venting without the need to run a machine. Now that would rely on the hardness of the mold steel, but I would venture a guess that it isn't tempered tool steel. Vent lines aren't anything more substantial than uniform "scratches" that run from the cavity to the edge.

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"Why is is called Common Sense when it seems so few actually possess it?"

Vents on my iron molds (all 20 years old or more) were clearly put in by a horizontal mill, and are bigger than an Exacto knife scratch. They are where I got the 0.005" number from. The fly cutter marks in Lee and other aluminum mold are smaller than the grooves in the iron molds, but they are more numerous. I think that's why they work out.

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